A. L. Kaplan

Tag: bones

  • PARIS AND BACK AGAIN

    I don’t normally write about traveling, but at the end of March and beginning of April I had the pleasure of taking my first trip to Europe. I got to spent nine wonderful days in Paris, France. I won’t bore you with all the details and everything I did, but here are some the highlights.

    First, I want to say that I felt safer walking the streets of Paris at all hours than I ever have in any US city. Sure I kept a lookout for pick pockets, but that’s not the same.

    20170327_200400The Eiffel tower was neat. I had a great view from my hotel room. In the evening, they make it sparkle for a few minutes each hour.

    There are enough museums in Paris to keep you busy for weeks, so I had to pick and choose. In college I studied art and architecture, but seeing them in a book or a slide is nothing like standing in the midst of these creations.

    The Orsay Museum had some of my favorite painters: Monet, Renoir, and Degas, along with other great impressionist.

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    Orangerie Museum built two rooms just for Monet’s last waterlily paintings. Each has four HUGE paintings. He was nearly blind when he made them. While notable, I still like some of his earlier paintings better.

    Speaking of Monet, for me a trip to France had to include a visit to his house and gardens in Giverny. 20170401_101611I just may need to get my paints out again.20170401_103253
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    Walking through the Louvre I got to see lots of cool sculptures and paintings. The scale of some of them surprised me. Theodore Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa felt like I could step onto the raft. (16 feet wide x 12 feet tall) If that wasn’t stunning enough, directly opposite it in this narrow hall was Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus. (Also 16 feet wide x 12 feet tall)

    My photos came out so distorted because there was no room to back up for the picture. BTW, the Mona Lisa is just as dull in person as it is in pictures. Rembrandt’s portraits were much more impressive.

     

     

     

    Notre-Dame Cathedral was spectacular and sad at the same time. Most of the paintings are fine, but some are peeling from the walls. Others are so covered with dirt and soot that I didn’t realize the paintings were there until I got right up to the wall. Soot can be removed. Sadly, the peeling sections are probably too far gone to repair.20170328_174614

    Sainte Chapelle’s stained glass was stunning but it was the floor tiles that caught my eye. Who knew there were so many wolf/canine motifs?

    Want to see something different and a little creepy? Visit the Catacombs. Yes, those are real human bones.20170330_123926

    From eating wonderful food, seeing the sites, and sitting on the banks of the Seine working on a story, I had a fantastic time.20170330_171708

  • THE DIG

    Lush green covered the banks of the river. It would have been beautiful were not for the scull in my hand. Finding bones on an archaeological dig wasn’t unusual, but his one was different. Caucasian, male, one gold tooth, just like Brendan Harper, one of the students who disappeared three years ago.

    The university didn’t seem to notice how many students dropped Professor Hamilton’s classes or simply vanished over the years. And I mean years, as in decades. My boss red flagged the case and I’d spent two years undercover waiting for him to slip up.

    “Are you ready to join your classmates, Miss Van?”

    Icy fingers touched my shoulder and the scull crashed to the ground. It felt as though the temperature dropped fifty degrees. I could feel a tug on my soul, feel my life force drain away even through the protections. Panic closed in. If I didn’t act soon I’d be nothing but a withered corpse for some future victim to find.

    A twist of my wrist slipped the magic dagger into my hand as I spun around. I plunged the weapon deep into the lich’s emaciated chest. His red glowing eyes widened in their dark sockets. Bony hands clenched my neck even as his body disintegrated.

    “You can’t destroy me,” he hissed. “I’ll be back within a week. Your soul will be mine.”

    “Not this time, Lich. I destroyed your phylactery this morning. Oh, and my name isn’t Miss Van. It’s Miss Van Helsing.